Supporting Cast
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1345: After Tina and Brittany's mock argument in the halls of McKinley, they are called in to see Rachel and Puck and discover the problem their stunt has caused. - Rent series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 64th cycle. Now cycle 65!_

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**"Supporting Cast"  
Rachel/Puck, Tina, Brittany  
Project No Day But Today series  
_(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)_  
**

They had likened this to being called to the principal's office, and when Tina and Brittany arrived at Rachel's house, where their presence had been demanded right away, they found it wasn't too far off from being the case. At first they had texted her back and said whatever it was, they would see her at school. This had led to a call, maybe four seconds after that message had been sent, telling them that, no, they would not wait until tomorrow, and unless they or someone else was in mortal danger, they could get out of whatever it was they were doing and get to her house immediately. They knew how dramatic Rachel could get, so they had just gone ahead and dropped by her house.

"Mom and Dad are angry," Brittany had whispered to Tina as they were made to sit in the living room like a couple of kids about to be scolded. Tina shushed her, even though she was feeling it, too.

"Look, whatever it is the two of you have gotten into, it ends right here, right now. You're going to shake hands on it, and then it'll be over," Rachel told them, pacing about. Puck was trying to make her stop, like he must have been doing all through the time they must have waited for the two girls to arrive.

"Rachel…" Tina started.

"Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what it's like to want to have a role all to yourself," the co-director carried on her track.

"Yeah, no kidding," Tina rolled her eyes.

"What's that?" Rachel turned on her and Tina sat up.

"Nothing," she promised.

"It's not real," Brittany blurted out, and Tina closed her eyes, while Rachel looked to the blonde.

"Sorry?"

"The fight, me and Tina? We just thought it would be funny, for the vlog, and we wanted to make it believable," Brittany went on explaining.

"Even the slap?" Puck asked, curious.

"Yeah, I told her to do that," Brittany grinned, only until Rachel turned to her, and then she bowed her head.

"Look, we tried something, what's the big deal?" Tina asked, not interested in being scolded for much longer.

"The big deal is now I've got mutiny, dissent, and rebellion," Rachel declared.

"Isn't that all kind of the same…"

"Our supporting cast, who have been nothing but encouraging up until now…" Rachel cut her off, only to be cut off herself.

"Except for that one time where they wouldn't show up," Puck pointed out.

"Ever since they heard about you two and your face-off, apparently, it's given them ideas. I've gotten more than half of them who now want to get bumped up to the lead roles, to procure some of our performance nights for themselves, where they would be the leads instead of us."

"So? Let them," Brittany had shrugged, and Tina had shut her eyes and groaned at the exact same moment Puck had.

"Tomorrow at school, I want you both to make it very clear that your whole thing was a joke and that you're very happy about things the way they are," Rachel had demanded.

"Yeah, but…" Brittany started, and Rachel left the room without answering.

"You two might want to get out of here, I've got this," Puck told the two of them, waving them out while they had the chance.

After he'd gotten them out, Puck had gone up to find Rachel, as he'd suspected, laid out in her room. "On a scale of one to ten, how crazy did I sound?" Rachel asked after he'd shut the door.

"Twenty-six?" he spoke honestly. She sighed, turning on to her back and sitting up. He sat down at the end of the bed.

"It's not supposed to be this complicated, is it? We got our cast together, our crew, we've been working through all these weeks, and it's finally starting to really look like something. We're this close to having everything ready, and then we only need to keep practicing, polish the imperfections, and then we'll be set for premiere night. We brought them on and they knew what their parts were going to be, it's not like we ever gave them delusions about that."

"So tell them that," Puck shrugged.

"I did," Rachel sighed. "It wasn't enough."

"Don't these shows usually have like understudies and all of that, to take people's place when it's needed?"

"We're already double cast, and if we need to get all these new costumes, how are we supposed to pay for it? Our budget is already barely keeping us afloat."

"We can work around that."

"If we fold at every single request, then what good are we as leaders?"

"Would it be so bad if they got a shot at it? They're good, aren't they? You wouldn't have taken them in if they weren't," he pointed out.

"It's only them who are complaining so far, but what if the rest of them get in this? The rest of the cast, the main ones, they won't be pleased either, trust me."

"Maybe it'll blow over. Once they see that this thing with Tina and Brittany was a joke, maybe it'll go away," Puck insisted.

"I don't know," Rachel shook her head.

"Look, let's just give it some time, see what happens. We don't have to do anything yet, we just wait, and then if it comes to it, we'll bring them all together and we'll figure it out. We have made it this far, we've gotten over problems before and we've always survived."

"You can be undefeated for as long as it takes, but all it takes is one defeat and then that's all over. Just the one. What if this is it?"

"Then just tag me in, and I'll avenge you," he tried to make her smile.

"It's both of us together," she reminded, with that smile. "We'll both be in the ring."

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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